Director Vijay has come out with a promotional film meant to increase awareness about organ donation. Released on February 6, the video has been doing the rounds on social media and has garnered a lot of acclaim for its director. The three minute film – titled Thank You – is an initiative of the National Foundation For Liver Research. “Since I have sizeable experience in directing ad films, I was approached to be part of this venture. From the details I could glean about organ donation in India, I realised that there was a paucity of donors. There is a lot of demand for organs here, but not enough resources. This is mainly due to a lack of awareness on the subject.”
The director also brought together a team of expert technicians – Jeeva Sankar, Pattanam Rasheed and Selvakumar – for the venture. Considering the limited budget and time-frame, most people who worked on the project were paid a token remuneration. “Some of them even worked for free. Since this was for a good cause, we wanted to bring out a quality product. We weren’t worried much about the response to the video. The only goal was to make sure that the message got through.”
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The concept of the film – ‘Death is not the end’ – has evoked positive response among the audience. “We needed a hook to grab attention. Instead of making a straightforward video about donating organs, we decided to show the difference that an act of donation can bring about in another individual’s life. We felt that this would create stronger emotional connect with the people.”
Also part of the goodwill effort was Amara Kaaviyam director Jeeva Sankar, who took on the cinematography duties. Speaking to Silverscreen, Jeeva said, “We shot in Chennai, though the film makes it look like we’ve shot across the country. We had two days to complete the film. Despite the lack of time, everybody co-operated and made sure the end result was perfect.